Thursday, February 9, 2012

Cat Butt, and How it Relates to Bookstores

I have a new job.

Same dance, new song: I'll still be working at a bookstore, but it's a primarily new bookstore instead of a primarily used bookstore. No more books that smell like cigarettes and mold, no more fun discoveries of bugs and underwear in book boxes, no more offering customers 50 cents for nice copies of Walden and Emily Dickinson. No more throwing books away like they're last week's leftovers. I will miss certain things, certain people, certain perks; that is the nature of change.

The new job is part-time, at least for now. This means I'll be developing a regimen for novel work and exercise, to be focused on daily (or very, very often). Hopefully, I can get myself and my novel whipped into shape. (Don't worry; I'll still post terrible book covers for you whenever they come my way.)

Unfortunately, this also means some degree of insanity in the next several months, yet again. I've already had my first couple of freak-outs about the new job, and I've only had one three-hour shift so far. As usual, this is going to be too much fun for me to handle.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I have panic attacks. I had one in college, and there were paramedics, an oxygen mask, and a stuffed piggy involved; I've not had similar symptoms since then, though the piggy is still around. That's why I call it a freak-out instead of a panic attack. Still a lot of intense, overdramatic emotion, but significantly less hyperventilating and muscle soreness.

It's kind of like waking up to a big blurry, fuzzy thing sitting on your head. You know it's the cat (the same one who's always lived here), but it's huge and too close, and you're focusing on all of it at once because, hey, there's a cat on your face. Times like that make me wonder if I should ever have bought a cat in the first place. But then it backs up at sits on your chest instead and you realize, it's just the cat. Who looks a lot smaller and less suffocating and cuter when it's not on your face. And you hope it doesn't decide to climb on your head again.

That's what my new job is like to me right now. Someday it will be comforting and lovable and it will eat treats from my hand. But for now I'm just worried about being suffocated by cat butt.